planetf1.com

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/105602

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has assured Mark Webber that he will be given the same opportunities as Sebastian Vettel to win this year's Formula 1 world championship.

I'm surprised no one is saying something about an RBR conspiracy yet!

No i believe he was given every opportunity last year as well but as usual he just wasn't good enough

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I hate to say it but Mark had his best chance in 2010 and Red Bull should have supported him then but they didn't.

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Jenson Button Fan.

I'm not saying this as a bias Mark Webber fan, but it's comments like yours that starts arguments on threads that could be genuinely interesting to read. You don't have to be so forward and critical..

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Bang on schedule, it's the annual, "it's only Marko who hates you" assertion from RB Towers.

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Klaus Kinski: making me question my heroes since January 2013

this

hmmmm.. Did you see Korea that year? If Mark keeps it on track he is the Champ... I blame that 100% on Mark... then Mark went to Abu Dhabi and was horrible too. He seems to have great pace when the pressure is off but makes a mess of it when pressure is on

You think he wasn't given a fair enough chance last year?

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He didn't win the 2010 WDC because he crashed in Korea

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If he's treated with equality in 2013 then I expect to see far fewer mechanical and electrical issues with his car and horrible race strategies for him from his team.

That's the acid test, because he has the speed.

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We want heroes, but there are few, mainly it's cars - Pedro De La Rosa

Meh he says this all the time, nothing new. Equality for its drivers is an important thing for the Red Bull corporate brand. The reality? Who knows.

Webber's KERS engineer?

(not serious)

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Klaus Kinski: making me question my heroes since January 2013

Favoring Vettel would mean NOT making his car break down on him, as he can then place his car between Vettel and the competition.



Where exactly did he get "horrible" race strategies? Other than the team pulling him in for putting in purples when told Vettel was coming up behind him?

Singapore was shocking, strategy wise and at a crucial time in the WDC for him.

It actually worked out quite well for him because he managed to take out Hamilton, his closest challenger at that time

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That isn't what I said, nor is it what I implied.

I'm saying, if you straight up say 'but he wasn't good enough,' in the nonchalant fashion that you did, all it's going to do is start arguments.

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DISCLAIMER #1: You're probably going to ignore the above post.
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It would appear RBR can only get one reliable car on the grid at any one time. Webber's KERS, DRS, engine troubles and grid penalties were consistent and multitudinous and have been for two consecutive seasons now.


He had awful strategies in a number of races last year. They were always 'trying something different with Mark' to keep him away with Vettel and 9 times out of 10 what they tried worked against him. The idiots even left him in the garage in Spain in quali with their crappy miscalculations.

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We want heroes, but there are few, mainly it's cars - Pedro De La Rosa

I don't really know where this thread is going, Webber has been beaten these last 4 seasons by Vettel, is this through lack of equality?

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This is nothing new DM says the same thing every time Webber goes to see him about a new contract.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Don't they say something like this every 6 months or so? while I agree he gets the same equipment as his team-mate, it's questionable whether that new equipment will suit his style or not compared to his team-mate. But since the change to Pirellis Webber has struggled, so thats not my biggest concern.

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Danger is real, fear is a choice.
PF1 Pick 10 Competition
Best Round Result: 1st (Monaco 2012)
Podiums: 4
2013 Championship Standing: 78th

I always thought Abu Dhabi looked a mess because of the crap strategy that the team gave him of coming in earlier than most for the harder compound which worked well at a previous race but terribly at Abu Dhabi.

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Jenson Button Fan.

What was so shocking about it? Looking at race data:
- first stop: he was stuck behind Di Resta, so they pitted him a lap earlier than they would have done (Vettel came in lap 9, Webber lap 7). Normal scenario would have been to go for two stops, so they put on softs to go for SS-S-S strategy.
- second stop: his tires were going away faster than predicted (evidenced by the sudden losses on Di Resta), so he was pitted again. At that point nobody could predict the SC, so it was plausible he would need one more pitstop after this one since his previous set of softs had only lasted 20 laps and that wasn't enough to end the race from here. So they put on supersofts, strategy changed to SS-S-SS-S
- third stop: SC had come out, Webber on supersofts which would never last. So they pitted him for softs.

Any comments are welcome, but looking at the race data, I don't think I myself would have made other choices without using hindsight.

It's not like Vettel didn't have problems in 2012. Two alternator failures which accounted for big failures, fuel issue in AD which possibly cost him another win.

The RBR wasn't the most reliable, fortune didn't favor Webber. But to think that has anything to do with the way Webber is treated? That's serious tin-foil territory.



No, don't say "a number". Tell me which races.

They'll just put him on the sub prime strategy

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Supporting in 2012:
Mark Webber.
Lewis Hamilton.

So this is the year we get to see Webber rocket to the top.

If it was contract discussion time, fair enough, but Mark already has a signed contract for this year so I am a bit curious as to why DM feels the need to come out & say it now. Maybe it is to counteract what Marko has been saying

I find it a bit of a shame that the need to emphasise the Mark will get equal treatment to Seb is apparent.

Looking back, Seb had a shocking start to 2010 in terms of reliability and was also involved in one or two incidents: Turkey being the one which stirred up so much discussion and perhaps prompted the whole 'equality' issue. Mark had his best chance to close out the title in 2010 but made a hash of Korea and was unfortunate (alongside Fernando) with strategy in Abu Dhabi.

2011 was simply Seb's year, no question. He had the car just to his liking and was totally dominant - a bit like Jenson in the first part of 2009. Mark was just not as comforable with the car as Seb; couple this with the odd quali and starting issues and the gap between the two became more significant than otherwise.

2012 was a frustrating first half for Red Bull, in that they were not on the front foot immediately. Seb's form towards the end of the season was another bite of 2011 and suggests that as the car improved it simply 'moved' more to his style rather then Mark's. Somebody has suggested that the tyres have also played a role in this 'difference' and that may well also be a factor.

I don't see any obvious bias towards Sebastian and do think that he is bettrer then Mark. I do, though, wonder whether (and this is probably more down to Helmut) there is a subconcious element of 'golden boy' mentality. Anyway, my tuppence-worth.

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What did you say... Douglas?

He didn't just come out and say it though.. He was asked by a Journo.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Mark himself in his post season review said that the strategy in Singapore was a problem. I think I'll take his analysis over yours.

From my memory they didn't manage the safety car situations at all well. This is not easy, obviously, but on the day it looked like a chaotic, poorly thought out set of decisions and was commented on by several pundits. Personally I think Mark's side of the garage made very poor decisions through most of the final third of the season. I suspect Ciaron Pilbeam, who departed for Lotus at the start of this year, had clocked off to some extent.

Mark's words:

"After that, I didn't drive as well as I could have done in Monza, we didn't get the strategy right in Singapore and then I got punted out at the second corner by Lotus's Romain Grosjean in Japan."

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/20551312

That makes more sense. I suppose we should consider ourselves fortunate that the Journo did not ask whether Seb would get favourable treatment and, on a negative response, report 'Red Bull denies that Seb will get favourable treatment.'

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What did you say... Douglas?

All of these articles are because a Journo has asked a question, goes without saying, but he could have just shrugged his shoulders & said that Mark will get equal treatment as always, but he didn't. Just saying

It seems to be a recurring trend here at PF1 to throw away argumented opinions under the moniker "X said so so that is more valuable than your opinion". That's way too easy.

I thoroughly looked at race data, evolution of gaps, etc. Findings are presented above. Mark may feel he wasn't done right with the strategy, but I'm asking here: what could they have done better in Singapore?
Not trying to pit him one lap sooner in order to get him unstuck behind Di Resta?
Leaving him out longer on rubber that was well worn out? Keep in mind before they pitted him a second time, he lost some 3 seconds to Di Resta in 2 laps.
Both of these weren't far-fetched decisions at all, and after stop 2 a 3-stop strategy was unavoidable because Marks tires faded far quicker than, e.g., Sebastians.

Like I said, I'll always take the opinion of the driver or an engineer (i.e. someone inside the team) over an arm-chair expert. Re-watch the race in full with proper context and I might start listening to you, instead you are just cherry picking quantitative data to suit your argument. We will never have access to the information that they had within the team (how the tyre deg was etc), and I don't think there's any reason Mark would randomly say he had a rubbish strategy that race when he didn't.

Mark is not the sort of person to point the finger at others unless it was the case that errors were made, he put his hand up for a poor drive in Monza.

At the time it was apparent to those of us watching Mark's race that the timing of his stops was very unfortunate. Just bad luck? Not really, it's the sort of thing that never seems to happen to Vettel.

The last third of the season was reminiscent of the comments Mark made about 2011, where he said he spent most of the season left on his own by the team. The focus (rightly perhaps) was on Vettel.

Yep, cue the "armchair expert" comment and we're at PF1 surely. I don't see the need for rewatching the race. I've seen it. I have studied the race data, probably more so than you did.

Cherrypicking means only taking the data that is useful to suit your opinion and leaving out the rest.

My question to you is very simple: what did I leave out?
What exactly that I'm saying is not correct and what should they have done that day, without using knowledge of what was going to happen further up in the race?

Would you have kept him out on his second stint on worn-out tires, losing 1.5s/lap (and probably even more in the following laps) to the man in front of him, let alone the race leaders?

Should be simple to answer, if I'm just an armchair expert without knowledge, right?

Sorry, got more important things to do with my life than re-watch an old race and study the lap data to win an argument on the interwebs.

I'll rely on my memories of the race and Mark's comments afterwards and at the end of the year. It's pointless trying to over-analyse it anyway. As I said, as viewers we are NEVER privy to all the information that would allow us to be sure what the optimal strategy for a given driver in a given car in a given team on a given day would be. So how can you be so sure you know best?

That's why you're saying I should re-watch?

Honestly, "your memories" aren't exactly worth more than "my memories" + analysis of actual race data. Next to that, drivers have it wrong from time to time.



I don't hold my opinion as the absolute truth. I'm open for any arguments and will adjust my opinion when presented with factors I didn't take into account.

But for the time being? I think I have a pretty good view on what happened in that race and since you can't present me with anything to contradict me, you've not exactly done a great job to change that.

Last point, don't project what you're doing on me. Remember it was you who presented a statement as if it were a proven fact ("Singapore was shocking, strategy wise") and I questioned that, using facts. If you're posting that harsh a statement, it should be easy to point out why it was so shocking and what they did wrong, but you seem to be unable to do so.

MDS isn't saying that the strategy was great. He's saying based on the way the race played out, a chance they took early in the race didn't play out the way they expected it to due to the saftey car and higher than expected tire degradation. So bad, but unintentional.

Webber saying "we didn't get the strategy right in Singapore" doesn't mean "Yep the team really screwed me there." He's just saying it wasn't good, placing no blame on anyone. I think by saying that the strategy was "a shocker," given the context of the discussion, folks might interpret that as saying that it was the teams intention to run that strategy from the start and didn't adapt to the circumstances or gave him a bad strategy on purpose.

It wasn't just Singapore, there were about 5 or 6 races where Webber's strategy was poor whereas Vettel's worked out well. The question arises as to why they weren't on the same strategy, but we already know why, they don't want the two clashing in every race.

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We want heroes, but there are few, mainly it's cars - Pedro De La Rosa

What are the 5 or 6 races?

There's a big difference between a strategy not being the right one in hindsight and not being the right one in foresight. There are lots of drivers and teams who say after a race that their strategy wasn't the correct one based on how things happened subsequently, but which they couldn't have predicted at the time. For example, pitting a couple of laps before a Safety Car or assuming that tyres will wear a certain way but they don't or trying to make tyres last when they shouldn't.

There are also legitimate reasons why Webber and Vettel might have been on different strategies. From memory Webber had a tendency to wear the Pirellis out faster than Vettel. But beyond that each driver's strategy is dependent on how their particular race unfolds - where traffic is in relation to them both in terms of their current track position and where they might come out after pitting, how their tyres are performing and consideration of risk vs gain from a strategic perspective. Unless Webber and Vettel were on the same tarmac at the same point in time, you can't automatically assume that just because they run different strategies that one is better than the other - it has to be related back to their particular race circumstances.

I'd also question any assumption that Vettel was always on strategies that worked out well. Do we know that for sure? It's possible that in hindsight some of his may not have achieved the best possible result and that had they done things differently he might have done better.

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